WHOOP Podcast - Cooking for performance: Chef Dan Churchill breaks down everything you need to know about nutrition

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Chef Dan Churchill joins the WHOOP Podcast to break down everything you need to know about nutrition. Dan is an expert on physiology, fitness, and the science of nutrition. He sits down with Will Ahmed to explain why eating late can negatively impact your sleep and how mindset can completely alter digestion and prevent you from reaching your weight-loss goals. Dan discusses food’s role in recovery (2:16), getting hooked on cooking (3:19), the science of nutrition (4:38), cooking and performance (7:04), his secret to cooking the perfect steak (15:26), finding the right nutrition plan (19:54), prepping athletes to perform (25:37), his freakishly low resting heart rate (29:23), the keys to losing weight (35:30), the science behind mindset and digestion (37:21), and why late meals are bad for you (42:27).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of Woop, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right. We build technology, hardware, software, analytics. It's designed to help you understand your body. Whoop has been shown to be able to change behavior and improve health by measuring things like sleep and recovery and strain. And if you want to get a WOOP membership, good news, you can use the code Will Ahmed, W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D for 15% off your W-W-P membership. We've got an awesome guest this week. Dan Churchill, Dan is a celebrity chef who is cooked for some of the top athletes in the world.

For example, he was Lindsay Vaughn's personal chef during the 2018 Olympics. He's a brand ambassador for Under Armour, and all-around really brilliant guy when it comes to health, fitness, and nutrition. He says it's a goal to bridge the gap between performance and cooking and shares some of his top tips and tricks to improve your meals. Dan and I discuss his journey from Australia to the U.S., the science behind weight loss and why studies are showing that mindset plays a huge role in someone's weight loss journey, why eating late is bad and how it can negatively impact your sleep,

and his secret to cooking the perfect steak. among other recipes. Dan's the host of the Epic Table podcast. He's often on television, restaurant owner in New York City. You're going to love Dan. And without further ado, here he is. Dan, welcome to the Woof Podcast. Mate, it is a pleasure to be here, Will. Good to chat. You know, I've spent some time looking through your books. I haven't read all of them, but I've ingested a lot of material. and you are an expert. I mean, it's fascinating going deep on all the different things that you have written

and learned about health and nutrition. Let's start here. If someone asks you at a dinner party, Dan, what do you do? How do you answer that? Mate, I, wow, yeah, that's a great question. For me, I'm like you, dude, I'm in the recovery game. You know, my job is to, as a performance chef, I guess the best way to summarize is to provide people with the best opportunity from a nutritional standpoint to be at their best,

either the next day or realize and make sure that those things are viable for them to perform at their best. So a lot of what Woop does in helping people, you know, be better themselves is that's what they want to do. My job is to facilitate that by providing as much nutrient and obviously at the same time tasty spectrum of flavor available. Now, you're from Australia, right? So growing up, were you always into, health and nutrition yeah dude so like in australia i i don't know at least on the east coast on the coast actually on the coast in general people are very much into the outdoor activities the lifestyle uh surfing i grew up in board shorts pretty much i played rugby always into sport

i had two brothers so very active and then um mate cooking just became a family orientation i always say i'm 100% spiritually italian and so that's probably what induced me to hook more. But then, mate, like I've always been interested in performance. And whenever I was at the gym or, you know, training at the sand dunes, I got pretty into being competitive in the sporting field. And that's what led me to kind of go in that performance route with my undergraduate and my postgrad. Explain what it means to take that route as an undergraduate. So when I finished school, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that in the world of sports, I was very, like, very related to that, and I loved it.

So I did an undergraduate degree, which is a bachelor's degree in sport and exercise management. And following that, I did a post-grad degree as a master's degree, so I have a master's in strength and conditioning. And with those degrees, one's obviously more specific and tailored to individual performance and obviously goes much more deep into physiology. The undergraduate degree is kind of like a foundation, if you will, and it was great because I got to do that over a five or six year, path and it led me to being able to work with athletes individually and on a team level

and then carved out a path for a point of difference because I realized that people in our world food is something we do naturally in terms of eating but there's still so many blurred lines as to how it can optimize our performance individually and so when I was listening to these athletes speak to nutritionists I found there was a massive disconnect both from a related perspective but also, athletes don't know how to cook yet. And that has changed since the eight years ago this took place. But my job became the facilitator to make what the nutritionist wanted the athlete to do. And also then for me, to be someone who understood that athlete's perspective and make it

viable for them both to kind of succeed in their goals. So you saw a gap. It sounds like you saw a gap. Essentially. And you've now filled it. So you were at school. This is still in Australia. Yeah.

So this was at the University Technology, Sydney. And that was in Sydney? Sydney. Yeah, that wasn't Sydney. It's like one of the coolest cities. When I was 13 years old, I went on a squash trip with seven friends to play like all the best schools in squash in Australia. And Australia has a good squash as well. And I remember we went from like Sydney to Canes.

Cairns, Adelaide, Ayrs Rock even. A Brisbane. You're saying all the right ones. Yeah. No, it was, it was really a wonderful, wonderful trip. And I loved Australia. And I, I've really been hoping to go back one time. So what, you know, what convinced you to come to the States? Well, like, yeah, as you said, as you're describing, like, Australia is a beautiful place. Like, it really is. Amazing. Good people, too. Yeah. We like, we try. We try. So, man, like, I was in this position where my personal brand is someone in food and performance

was growing in Australia. But then after doing some media, I was approached by some American opportunities and essentially led me to come over. The interesting things, to make a slight little tangent, you have to get the right visa to be living and working here for what I wanted to do. And after some contract negotiation, all those kind of things, I was fortunate to finally get that. That required me to have a book and a TV deal.

So I came over five years ago. And, yeah, essentially from the get-go, it was building. building the brand again, but also essentially filling that gap, as you will. Like, there really wasn't anyone that we knew at the time that could speak to athletes or speak to individuals about health, but also have the background to be facilitating the food side of things as well. So I was the kind of person who bridges the gap between performance and cooking. That is my role as what I do.

Yeah, I love that. And so you're in Manhattan now. Yeah, man, and live in a place called Soho, so downtown south of Houston. yeah man the restaurants about a five minute walk from there a lot of good restaurants in soho yeah dude there's a lot going on over here even this climate we're all banding together and it's one of the coolest things about living in this city you are really drive through when it comes to work ethic so you're in your mid-20s you arrive in manhattan what then you've got it sounds like you got a book deal and you're on a television show yeah so i was on a show called a chew and then i was also um had a book and yeah man

it was like from the get-go, I probably didn't know anyone other than one or two people. So I had to, I didn't know this at the time, but socially is something, you know, social network is pretty important. So I built up my social network. I built up just constantly building my brand, SEOing my content online, you know, meeting with people helping, you know, whether individuals or brands work with themselves and understanding how to improve, you know, their audiences through food or through fitness. And then after a while, my content and all my writing work became so consistent that brands

were starting to reach out to me through just Google searching. So Under Armour came around as a result of a Google search. So it's pretty cool. Just to anyone who wants to know about the importance of being consistent in SEO and 10 keywords with your website, I'm living proof that you just definitely should put some time into that because that's how the Under Armour opportunity for me came around. And by the way, I'll double click on that. You know, we've been talking about things at Whoop like Heart Rate Variability for eight years.

Yeah. And eight years ago, if you Googled Heart Rate Variability, Whoop didn't exist. And today, if you Google Heart Rate Variability, or one of the answers for what is heart rate variability. And it just shows you, it takes a really long time, but you have to be persistent with it and stay with it. Yeah, man. It's the same with like, I think around the time for me. me, whoop and all this, you know, stuff around sleep and everything. It's, it's interesting to know how much more people are wary of their sleep and their

performance after COVID. You know, COVID's an unfortunate time, but it is definitely brought about our understanding of putting more time into ourselves because people now in tune going, okay, well, what is sleep? And I have no doubt that on your websites and all those kind of things, your team has done an astronomical job of really making sure you guys are top of the list with that one. Yeah, totally. I mean, it's critically important. And we're also trying to build a brand that's around really explaining what these things are too, you know, in an authentic way. And I think it, I think at the end of the day, all these things work the best if you are authentic about them. You know, like listening to you speak, reading your books, it's clear that you're just passionate about it. You're not like faking your way to the top of an SEO ranking. You just care a lot about it. You just care a lot about it. you're curious. You're interested by it and you want to explore it. So, you know, there's a real

authenticity there, I think. Yeah, thanks, man. I'm blessed that food is my job. And then I get to help people better themselves through it because ultimately food to me is super tasty. It's the number one thing. It has to be. But it is also universal language. And so the ability to, you know, put a bowl of ramen in front of someone who does not speak a word of English, but see them smile is pretty impacting. But then on the other side, I have the ability to have, well, I have a responsibility when it comes to the land of sustainability. So there's so many different tangents, food plays a role. And I'm a, I'm very blessed to be someone who can be a spokesperson for all of them. But I love what I do. I love reading up on it. I love speaking to people

about it. I love, you know, even now talking to you about it. It is generally something passionate. And I think everyone thinks about something they do right now and memories that they'll be reminded by from their childhood and I always remember the moments of my family and food. That's just something I always do. All right. So let's do this. I want you to educate me on how to become a good chef, right? Here we go. Nice. Yeah. And like, let's do this by meal. So breakfast, right? I want to have a nutritious breakfast. I want to be able to cook it myself. I've got a functioning kitchen. I've got a functioning fridge. What are the types of things that you would recommend that someone like me, has in and around their kitchen and makes for breakfast.

Well, firstly, do you have any dietary restrictions, my man? Are you good to go? Okay, so I personally actually have a major one in that I'm lactose intolerant. Okay, cool. Awesome. But for the sake of the audience, we don't necessarily have to cater exclusively to that. Cool. I think, well, first and foremost, let's think, you know, time's off the table, but usually

I take into account time, I take into account skill set, and then obviously accessibility to ingredients. but, you know, simply put, man, the best thing you could probably do is reward yourself by making something looks technical, but isn't. And so the best thing to do would be to scramble a bunch of eggs in a bowl, lay that into a fry pan, chuck some vegetables on top and put it in the oven. And honestly, it can be different ingredients, mushrooms, peppers, you know, onions, add some spice to it.

And once you put in the oven at about, you know, let's say 375 for about 10 minutes, it out and you got what looks like a beautiful, you know, fatata and you can slice it up, serve it for yourself, serve for your friends, put it away for the next day, and you've got something super nutritious, but ultimately for you, you've looked out and going, I've cooked that, and that's rewarding for you, but it's super easy. So it was two steps. Scramble eggs, cut vegetables, put them in a bowl, see you later, fry pan, done. Happy days.

I love it. You know, it actually has been rewarding during COVID getting into cooking. My wife and I have both gotten into cooking. and every morning I would wake up and make myself breakfast when in the past I would go buy it at a local deli or whatnot I'm a big fan of breakfast sandwiches so my my favorite thing to make is like you know three eggs kind of over medium it was like a well-toasted everything bagel and salt and pepper and maybe a little ketchup on the side you know that that to me is kind of like right in my wheel has you know I've gotten a little more adventures in the breakfast front where

where all of a sudden it's more of an egg white omelet with some garlic and onions and peppers and things like that. How's your scramble game? Is you scramble game good? I think it's pretty good. I mean, I think that stuff's pretty easy. Yeah,

what is like, all right, let's transition to dinner because you can obviously do so much more with the dinner. There's so many different ways to take it. Let's pretend you've got a couple hours. You want to impress your friends. You want to show off.

What are we making? Mate, honestly, first thing comes to mind is my sweet potato and yoki, which I just put on my gram. So like this thing where nocky seems like the most intense thing to do, yet it's very simple. All you have to do is spike your potatoes, in this case sweet potatoes, put them in the oven for about 30 minutes. So all you're going to spike them in the oven 30 minutes, pull them out. So what does it mean to spike them?

Yeah, sorry, good question. No, get a fork and prick them all over. Okay, go. What will happen is if you put them in the oven and don't spike them, they'll explode. Okay. We don't want that. It's really hard to clean up, trust me. so once you pull them out you take the skin out after allowing the cool and you've got

your what's called your sweet potato meat put that into a bowl with some eggs and then here's the kick up i don't like creating recipes believe it or not i really don't because i'm an intuitive cook so when i create when i created my cookbooks that was the hardest thing for me to do because i had to go back and actually measure all the ingredients i thought i had to put into it but essentially you add enough flour so that once it's once you're combining it all together it does not get to the point where it is sticking to a bench. Now, generally speaking, with, say, three large sweet potatoes, it's probably about two cups of flour.

And once you've done that, you roll them into a ball, drop them in some boiling water, and you've got your sweet potato and yoki done. Nice little simple tomato sauce. That's super easy. Wow, look at that. Yeah, done. Okay, how about if we want to cook some meat?

A steak or chicken. Do you have a preference? Yeah, let's cook steak. Okay, steak. All right. So there's a secret to the. perfect steak. Five tips. All right, one, bring it out to room temperature 20 minutes before you are actually going to cook it. Add salt to it on both sides. So you crossed it and

remove the moisture from outside of the steak. Will you add pepper or just salt? Just salt? Don't add pepper. Got it. Done. Then you want a super high heat pan, blazing hot, drizzle some olive oil in and then add your steak and you're going to cook each side for 30 seconds initially. So 30 seconds on one side, 30 seconds than the other. Now, if you've got about, I'd say an inch steak, a good inch steak, you're probably going to turn this every 15 seconds for about three to four minutes. Now, the reason behind the 15 second turn,

and I live by this, is that you get a nice tender, now 95 to 98% of the actual steak becomes medium ram, as opposed to turning once and you've cooked it so far on one side only, and then turned it and flipped it and turned it on one side and cooked it one side so early, what you've done is you've got gray, a little bit of pink and gray. So the medium rare will get cooked if you keep it on one side flip only. But multiple flips every 15 seconds for three to four minutes with an inch thick steak

is how you do it. Then you take it off, allow it to rest, uncovered, and slice against the grain. It's super simple. Now, that's fascinating. You know, I've normally done it with the one flip. and you know you're right it's like you've got two colors you got the dark crisp and then you got kind of the red or the pink depending on how yeah dude i'll come up and show you we'll do it hand in hand i would love that and we'll make it happen and what if you're cooking chicken what do you like

to do man i'm uh right now i'm doing this thing where i'm taking i'm deboning the chicken and i'm essentially cooking the chicken breast and the thigh at the same time and then what i do is i compress it by having the skin side down in the pans or fat comes out and I press it down, which is known as brick chicken. So you're pressing it here and add garlic, rosemary, time, into the pan. So it's kind of like semi-frying it with the chicken fat that's already doing. And then I turn it back over and put in the oven that's about 375. So, you know, you're essentially crisping up the skin so nice.

You're pressing it down so all the juice comes out and uses it to cook through. And then once you turn and put in the oven, you know, it's home and hose. So we have to do it was pulled out after about 15 minutes. Explain to me, like, what is the thought process behind when I should be doing something in a pan versus in an oven. That doesn't come intuitively to me. Okay, man. So this is the thing that's so interesting.

So let's use chicken breast as a pure example of this. So if you look at the cross section of your chicken breast, it's still pretty solid at the thicker part. Now, if you were to cook one side of the chicken and then flip, you're cooking only from one section. So the underside, because it's where the actual stovetop is. It's cooking from below. There's no heat coming from above. Totally, yeah.

So if you flip it over, the other side does exactly the same thing. So what happens to the center? The center, in order to get the center cooked, you have to cook all the way through one side and all the way through the other. So the outside actually gets dark, it gets burnt, it dries out, particularly for a chicken breasts, just to get that center cooked through. So this is what we need to do. We need to cook one side, turn that chicken over, and then put it in the oven because

what happens is the heat no longer is just from the bottom. It's from everywhere around and it's dry heat. so it's not going to release any moisture. So you're going to cook the chicken through. It's going to be perfect. It's also an easy way to determine if your chicken is cooked because the direction of the heat is actually coming from the same side. So whilst initially it was coming from the bottom,

when you turn it over, it's coming from the top. So the top side of the chicken is still getting the same direction of the chicken being cooked all the way down. So that's the best way to think about it. And with meat, are you almost always using broil in the oven? I actually don't. If I'm cooking steak or meat in general, I'm only cooking a roast in the oven. So if I'm doing a beef, bignon, or like a round-eye fillet roast, I'm using a roast setting.

I only use broil if I'm finishing cheese or if I'm doing a nice finish on a skin or something like that. I rarely do it. A lot of people do. I just find it easier, especially when teaching people, to learn the stovetop to then move to the oven. You know, a lot of athletes don't like using the boiler. They just prefer to use a stovetop, see it, visualize it, and then put in the oven. Now, what are mistakes that athletes make, let's start with athletes, what are mistakes that athletes make in thinking about a balanced diet or just in a diet in general?

Yeah, look, I think, firstly, I think athletes are getting smarter and more knowledgeable when it comes to what to eat for themselves. But I think that's the biggest problem initially is that they don't, they eat for the general person. Now, particularly athletes, the most important thing to remember is we all buy individual different, right? By individuality is so important to remember, particularly for athletes, because their gut matrix is so different due to how much calories and energy activity are doing throughout the day. So for someone to be, you know, before you even think about the type of exercise

they're doing or the type of training and how much training modality or what time of the year they're at, we have to think about them in terms of what their gut is telling them from firstly enjoyment, what's actually digesting well, and then also what they enjoy. So I've had athletes where they come to me and say, I want this, I want that, great. And you start doing it and they tell me their digestion's often, well, we haven't actually listened to their gut as opposed to listening to what they've been told to have. And that's the biggest misconception for me. Got it. And so how will you, what's an example of something that might sound like it's good for you nutritionally, but screws up your digestion? So there's a common one would be

chickpeas or anything in the legume that, like there's these things on lectins and they're not they're not always bad. Some people just don't have the ability to digestively break them down. So they don't have the enzyme associated breaking them down. So as a result, they have a problem with their gut. Now, it is something that you can overcome. But because hummus and chickpeas are a lot of things, particularly in the plant-based world as a high in protein opportunity,

people are under the misconception. They're like, I'm having hummus. I'm having chickpeas. It's fine. But they don't really, and then all of a sudden they're having these digestive issues. and it's not until I actually think about it going, oh, I consistently have chickbees or beans or, you know, those kind of things until they actually make the connection.

And that's where it's, you know, it's unfortunate, but you have to be like, okay, we have to tone that back a little bit until we're all good. The same with nuts as well. Some people have a lot of trouble breaking down nuts. And it's not like they don't have like an allergic reaction, but just digestion is not working as well. And sometimes we have to think about some probiotics to include

in what they're having just to support the breakdown of those foods. If you've got an athlete who's got a competition or a game tomorrow night, how would you think about, you know, breakfast, lunch, maybe even a snack before that event? yeah so this is where it's pretty interesting i hopefully i've been with the athlete for at least two weeks prior and the reason why i say that is it's really important that we have got into a food cycle with them so if they are if i just can come to them two days beforehand i'm in trouble because i'm cooking things their body's not used to but for the sake for the sake of the fact i have been we are so what i would do if it's tomorrow night generally speaking we'd get up we'd have a high protein moderate carb day to start that have a shake second part of the day.

Their third meal, which probably around 1 o'clock, that would have their last big meal. And then what we'd have this thing called is mash. So mash is essentially a very high GI food, able to be consumed and digested easily. And that's about two hours before your event. And then 30 minutes before, you may have a half a banana or something that's really digestible. and easy to take on from a sugar standpoint. So that's generally the frameworks. We'll probably have like two to three main meals a mash and some liquids as well.

So what are attributes of a mash that like or what examples of things that would be in a mash that wouldn't be in that sort of like bigger breakfast, for example? Yeah. So you're looking like oats and maple, you know, things that almost like as it sounds. Like mash sounds like it's just gunk, right? And it sounds so weird, but it's actually quite delicious. Loliathletes love it. So oatmeal would be an example.

Yeah, exactly. Oats, even a bit of chia, maple, in like some sort of, even water. Sometimes they want egg in that. It's scrambled, but it's easily not so many eggs, but just a little bit of natural protein there versus like a full on, like, you know, egg breakfast. Sure. As I said, for tired of a four scramble or even, you know, like that some athletes don't like doing oatmeal before day on game day they're going to like to do that mash before uh events

which is pretty interesting but you know what do you think of the whole peanut butter jelly sandwich dude um i had an athlete who finished an event had a cycle had two hours until it's until their next one and they could have whatever they wanted because i needed energy and i asked for pb and j and that's what happened the pv and j thing is a phenomenon amongst pro athletes i i'm I made this up because I've seen so many pro athletes eat PV and Js like, you know, two hours before their thing. It gets energy into them so quickly. It's got, you know, the sugars they need.

So you're fine with that. You think that's a good, that's a good form of a mash? Well, yeah, I do, but it's not for the every, it's not, I'm not advocating everyone have that. I'm like, if you are someone who's got a heat and then you compete in your heat and you've got maybe two and a half hours before your next one and you need something quick and that's what you want, I'm giving it to. you know same with like banana bread like i make a killer banana bread but i'm not going to say for

everyone to have that it's someone who is going firstly you also have to think about it will from like a psychological perspective sometimes it's not even nutrition what it is but like i also think about from a psychological perspective what's going to give this athlete the edge mentally and if it's knowing that they've got that in their system even if it's not necessarily the best thing for them that is mentally over physical for me yeah that makes sense Totally. What do you think of as good recovery, drinks, foods? Like, right after you exercise, what are the things that you want to get into your system? What are the things you don't want to get into your system? Yeah, yeah. So, like, there's a lot of contention over this, actually,

and a lot of it, again, goes back to what we're talking about with the gut and bio-individuality. But generally speaking, people have had the contention over whether we need to have those shakes within that 20-minute glycolytic window post-workout. Some people say... Just to explain that, I'm pretty familiar with this, but explain that phenomenon. Yeah, so to put it simply, when you are exercising, you have all these physiological systems activated and very much elevated to support your intensity of exercise. But then after you finish your workout or your given event, they're still elevated. So your ability to pump energy back into your, say, your muscles, so get sugars from the blood into your muscles, etc., is, is a lot dependent upon, or is at a high state.

So if you want someone who wants to take all that energy that you have and get in there quickly, you may want to consume some goods. Now, this is where the things like the, we've talked about sugars with insulin and you need insulin to get it into your muscles. This is not the case anymore. So we have this ability. If we have trained ourselves that are enough and these athletes who generally have been, you can actually take sugar from the blood into the muscles without actually using

insulin. So which is, which is benefit for fat like, you know, you're not affecting fat, but also you're not having a problem with your blood sugar levels. You're not affecting your brain ability. So this is where that glycolid window becomes particularly important for athletes in that if you have a shake or something high in sugar straight after an event and you have been training for so long, you have the ability to not require insulin to take sugar from your bloodstream into your muscle. It's pretty interesting. It's fascinating. Okay. So now you're saying there's some contention about how important that is. What side of the debate are you on?

Do you think it's important? Yeah, I think it's very important. I've looked at everyone. Every person I'm very fortunate to work with, generally speaking, gets really fucking angry. Sorry, if I swear, they get really hungry if they don't get their food. So getting a shake within the first 20 or 30 minutes,

I'm not going to put a timestamp on it, but just get something that's easy digestion into your system. And is that a shake that you'll make for them, or is that like, you know, hey get this weight protein put it in water blah blah blah yeah so some athletes have like some athletes have a particular mix some will have a supplement that i'm meant to add into a smoothie that i will make and then take to the event um some i won't obviously be with them all year round so they'll then just have their own but generally speaking it's a combination of supplementation some whole food fruits

um you know some seeds and things that they've been told to have and then within that hour we are big on still getting whole foods into your intake because you know some of these athletes are burning so many calories every single day and just to support that they need to be getting a lot of food in like massive sidebar it will but on whoop the other day i i do when i'm in the kitchen i do like 5,000 cows just in the kitchen it's crazy right so like yeah it's crazy this non-invasive exercise that we do and so when we compare that to an athlete they're doing so much and so they need to get the fuel into them so yes we get a big show shake and then following that, they eat whole foods within the hour. So within two hours,

you've had a shake and whole foods. You brought up your calorie burn. Is that in part why you have a resting heart rate of 31? Oh, dude, I don't know if it's a, I would love to know. I was just thinking about that. I was just kind of look at just then. I don't know if there's a any synergy there is to that. I've just, I've always known. Well, I'll tell you that that's like freakishly low. That's like Olympic swimmer low, which is a sign that you have enormously great cardiovascular health. Well, dude, I think I was telling you, when I found that out, someone told me that Lance Armstrong has 32. And so I haven't worked with Lance on Woop, but I know he has probably a really low resting heart rate. You know, people like Phelps were in the

low 30s. It's, I mean, it's rare territory. So what does it put me? Where does it put me in the world of work? Am I like top hundred? I can't speak to that. I don't know exactly, but I would imagine that you are way up there, which is pretty amazing. Do you have any sort of techniques personally that, that, you know, keep you calm? And I mean, I imagine that you're probably not crushing caffeine. caffeine at a crazy rate? You tell me. Man, I actually do have a lot of coffee. I own a coffee shop, so it helps.

Okay, there you guess. Now, are you not drinking caffeine late in the day? Yeah, like past two, I won't have any. Okay, so that helps. That does help, definitely. You meditate or anything like that? I don't do as much as I would to get 31. That's my thing.

So, like, I meditate probably once a week right now. And that's the thing. Like, I look at my, to be honest, Will, like, I look at my resting heart rate and I go, I reckon I can get it down because I haven't done enough that I'm so, I guess, I'm kind of exciting. Yeah, it really is, man. It really is. Like, could you get into the 20s would be an insane personal goal? Now, you obviously exercise. What are you doing personally for exercise?

Yeah, man. So right now, I run twice a week now, and then I'm lifting. So back in the gym. During COVID, I was doing all these workouts on my rooftop. I just had a kettlebell. So I was doing everything body weight related. And also, yeah, calisthenics, training down the West Side Highway. And then, yeah, we've got a group now, man, on Thursday nights that I take for a session.

It's called Thirsty Thursdays. A little shout out. We've got our group. So, man, it's been a lot of fun. Oh, that's cool. Now, what do you do if you're going to do a 30-minute workout or a 45-minute workout, just body weight? What are you doing doing that? Yeah, so the first kind of two rounds or sets that I put out for myself would be strength-based.

So I'll do something that's, you know, handstand push-ups, a variation of push-ups, in general, squat, variations, mobility. And then I'll probably leave maybe like a five to ten-minute sprint wad, followed by like a big, big wad to finish. So it could be like an alarming amount of reps for a circuit, and I've got to do that with a time cap. and that's generally what I do. So I'm a big fan of like, I think, through COVID learning more about how to move your body.

So like handstand walking, all that kind of stuff became something I was really focused on just because obviously it was a new challenge. But also like I love testing your body within its limits without having to apply other weights and strengths. So yeah, that was a pretty exciting time for me. I think there's something amazing about being strong relative to your weight. I got super into pull-ups over the past couple of years and went from being pretty lousy at them to pretty good at I've started doing a lot of inversion stuff. I mean, you seem really good at handstands and walking around on your hands. I haven't quite gotten there.

I don't know. There's something about it. It just makes me feel like you're more one with your body if you're good at those things. It also is a great way to calibrate whether you're the right weight, too. Because I feel like if you can't do a certain number of push-ups and sit-ups and if you can't pull your body weight up, you know, there's something. super inefficient about your body. Yeah, man, I think that's all we all should be starting. And it's when you can start to do those things and bust out, say, 20 push-ups and then you

can move to third, it's a rewarding feeling because, you know, you can jump on a bench press, but all you're doing is moving a plain of motion. Whereas I feel when you're working just within your body, you're also doing something that's good for your overall health. And you're using generally more muscles when doing that because, you know, you're not isolated or you're using more stabilizers, which help your body balance. better. You're challenging your central nervous system more. You're doing all these things that activate more systems. But overall, yeah, it's like, it's a real, it's a, it's a, it's a,

it's a genuine rewarding experience and feedback to know that you can do pull-ups or, you know, shoulder touches or whatever it is that's, uh, you're challenging yourself for. Are you pretty flexible? No, I'm really not, man. My flexibility is poor. It's probably one thing I don't concentrate enough on when it comes to everything we've got going on. But yeah, I feel like, I feel like most men could be more flexible. yeah definitely do you do you stretch do you do that kind of stuff as well i don't stretch quite as much as i should i do stretch for like 20 minutes or 30 minutes after i play squash because i find my body is very primed so to speak to be stretched when you're that warm and you're that sweaty

but how's your heat mobility for squash like that's pretty important it is really important i mean i think that's one of those things that you also can naturally develop from playing as well because you just, it's so much turning that you're actually opening it up in the process as much as you are wearing it down. So I haven't, fortunately, haven't had any hip issues, but that is something that plagues the sport. My dad got hit in the nose a few times and broke his nose playing squash. So he's a very attractive man thanks to squash. Yeah, dangerous sport, little other people know. So let's talk about weight loss. If you want to lose weight or someone comes to you and says, Dan, I want to lose weight. How do you start thinking about nutrition for that person?

So, I mean, there's a few things I always, generally speaking, they're a general public individual. And so I always talk about the things to cut out immediately. And that is to look at reducing your refined sugar intake, so either immediately or just educating them on the impact of what sugar does. So I feel like, I feel like everyone hears that, right? Everyone here is reduced sugar. But explain, like, what are things that sugar is actually in? Because that actually is less obvious. Yeah. So, for example, we talked about the PB&J earlier.

Jam, generally speaking, is full of refined sugar. Like, it really is. So the breakfast cereal you have for sugar, the sugar you add to your coffee, sugar. Like, you know, there's also sugar in natural things like honey and maple syrup. And I think there's also sugar technically or in the carbohydrate starches you get in sweet potato. Like there's different forms of sugar. And the more, if you're going to have sugar in your day no matter what through certain energy forms, it's important to cut up the ones you do not need.

So you control the control. So let's cut out adding the sugar to your coffee or tea, number one. Let's cut out or a juicy amount of ice cream or gelato you're having. Let's cut out, you know, the jams, the cereals, those kind of things that really don't add much nutritional value to you. But let's also keep in mind the happiness that we get from enjoying the dark chocolates of the world and the red wines of the world. because I'm not here to say, eliminate them completely, because if I did, I would be the Grinch. And also, I'd be taking away a super important aspect of your digestion, which is your happiness. And when you sit down and enjoy something, you have to perceive you're about to enjoy it.

Otherwise, your digestion is going to be off, believe it or not. So that's interesting. The mindset with which you eat something affects how you digest it. Yeah, there's an article called it gut brain access in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And it talks about how you perceive food or your state of mind when you're about to consume something, has a relationship with your newer transmitters, your endocrine system, and your ability to then obviously digest and have the right microbiome activated properly to get it going. Now, you think about it.

We talk about the brain and the gut and how they're related. The gut is a second brain. There are more neurons in the gut than they're on the brain, which is pretty amazing. So for these guys to talk to each other, it's pretty important. And if you've got things like, you know, we take dietary fiber and we break that down in our gut and it turns into postbiotics or short chain fatty acids such as butrate, which we require to support the brain and be a huge integral part of our blood brain barrier. And if it's not working efficiently because the endocrine system or the neurotransmitters that are responsible for communicating that pathway are not working, we're going to have a problem. And so that's why the perception or a perceived state is so important when it comes to eating and enjoying. You look at people who are either depressed and sad versus those who are happy and enjoying themselves.

There's a distinction between how those individuals will be able to digest food. So interesting, right? Because losing weight may in part be a mindset of how you look at food. Mate, this is another study they did. They looked at people who were looking at it in the right way. Exactly. It's so fascinating because if you, You are someone and you are looking to lose weight.

And you're in a state of mind where you're excited, know it's going to be a challenge versus I want to do this, but I know it's going to be hard. And I'm not motivated, but I'm going to do it because my family told you, is this going to have different effects, different results? And it's interesting to finally have some studies that support that. Okay. So you tell people to cut out their sugar.

What else we got? So wait. So go from there. Then we concentrate on Whole Foods. So we try to talk about knowing where your food comes from. And I'm not going to know that this is going to be something that changes over the course of weeks. It may take months. But ultimately, trying to get them to eat more colorful ingredients, whole foods, minimize processes ingredients.

And then the third thing is, you know, the amount of protein they're having, whether it be plant-based or not, is to find the right sources of protein for them. So the first thing, refine sugar, cut it out. Two, eat whole foods, colorful ingredients. Step three, find the right protein that works for you. So in a practical assessment of this, work the aisles of your shopping cart. You know, when you go to the supermarket, work the aisles. Try to refrain from picking up packaged goods unless you trust the sauce and cans and things like that. Try to minimize them as much as possible.

And then obviously when you're working with your chicken, your beefs or eggs, just make sure they're coming from a source that you trust again as well. I mean, it seems like a lot of the development of food over time has been to make it more complicated and more processed. and it seems like the answer often to making people's diets healthier is to make them simpler. Is that a fair generalization? Honestly, I could not surmate that any better. If you think about if I go to the supermarket and look at an ingredient and I cannot pronounce the ingredient items that are there, there's obviously an issue.

And that's just purely because people, first of, you know, a lot of commercial goods have pressure to be on longest shelf lives. and so they have to have things that are added to them to support their shop life. But also, then you've got, like, you're in a situation where your body's taking on ingredients, I want to call them foods that are so foreign to you. And so your body doesn't know how to digest them. And that becomes an issue in itself. The American diet, unfortunately, is so rich in omega-6 fatty acids that has become an imbalance.

And we have, you know, commercially industrialized foods become so omega-6 heavy that it's causing such an imbalance. and omega-6 foods are chronic inflammatory agents. So we're trying to reduce inflammation. Instead, we continue to consume foods that are chronic inflammatory agents. And so that's why, you know, to make it simple, avoid anything that's been super-industrialized, keep it less refined, more whole foods, and we're going to be good to go. If you're trying to figure out personally if your diet is good or healthy, what are indications that maybe a meal you just had wasn't good for you or isn't something

that you know it's like if you're dehydrated your urine's yellow what what are the versions of that for diet that might be signals um otherwise yeah cool so there's some of the obvious ones and similar to urine you can look at your stool sample there's also the gut feeling like if with the response to uh chickpeas as we said earlier you'll know it because you feel it you get the toss in the turn they're ripping the feeling about awkwardness and that generally speaking happens like 45 minutes after eating. So you know that pretty immediately. But the other one made is your sleep pattern because your body doesn't switch off when it's digestion at night time. So all of a sudden, if you look at your, your, you know, your Woop device and it tells you're having

constant, you know, you're waking up, your latency, all that kind of stuff, then that's a really big indicator of going, okay, well, maybe the food I'm having. Aside from the fact my mind might not switch off, part of the reason why your mind does not switch off is because, again, of that connection between your gut and your brain. Your gut's not switching off because it's digesting food in a way that's not efficient, but also, yeah, your brain's in response trying to work out what's going on so you don't fall asleep properly. Such a good point. And by the way, one of the biggest reasons that people don't sleep as the highest quality as they can

is that they're actually eating too close to bedtime. Yep. You know, to your point about digestion affecting your sleep. Maybe you're using too close to bedtime, you're going to screw up your digestion and your sleep. Yeah, wow. Dude, you've been doing your research. There's a great study on circadian rhythm and its effect. I think it was 2017 again in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and talked about it.

It's essentially if you eat too close to bed, you're screwing up your circadian rhythm, which affects obviously everything that goes on in getting prepared to sleep. So not only is the digestion and issue, but of course, if your circadian rhythm is out of whack, you're also going to reset your clock in a way that when you wake up in the morning, you're going to be super tired, and you're going to, you know, again, have to reset that by going back to your old ways again. So one, like, they say to sleep two hours at minimum after eating. So if you're going to bed at eight, you want to make sure you're eating at six at the last

second. If you're eating at 7.30, don't go to bed until at least after 9.30. But make sure, obviously, you're still getting up in the morning at time. So if you're someone who gets up in the bed, if you're, you know, if you're someone who gets up early, make sure you're eating the right time in the same. I see it with it. I think for everyone listening to this, especially those of you on whoop, pay attention to the difference in your sleep quality when you eat, you know, two hours before bed versus four hours before bed or one hour before bed versus three hours before bed. It's, it's,

it's quite meaningful. Okay, so Dan, let's talk about you the hard driving entrepreneur. You know, you're a very successful guy. You're young. You've done television shows. You've written books. How do you deal with when, you know, okay, the first draft of your book, you get a bunch of criticism, or how about right now during COVID? I mean, I imagine you have friends or it's even affected you directly where, you know, a restaurant's closing or something. What's that been like working through? May has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences at the same time because, you know, I have two sides of my life when it comes in a professional life. I've got that media side and I've got the restaurant side. Now the media

side kicked up because everyone wants to know how to cook at home and work out at home. So that was like, totally. Yeah. On the other hand, my restaurant, well, we were told to close. So we had to start from scratch again. And, you know, essentially we closed, but all we did was meal plans. So we're still able to do a meal plan. So I jumped in the kitchen by myself and did the meal plans, which is totally fine, loved it.

After a while, got to a point where we were building back up and we were allowed to open certain seating. And we could afford to pay staff, but they didn't want to come back to work. To face that challenge, how do I deal with that, was essentially I'd be starting work at six, going through till four, and then starting my job. Starting my day. So that was a challenge, not to mention the emotional challenges, a lot of friends losing their restaurants and all that kind of stuff. But to be completely honest, the most rewarding thing is coming out of it. The restaurant's doing better than it was last time, to be completely honest. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's great. And tell everyone the name of your restaurant. Yeah, so it's called Charlie Street. down in Olatah. So it's got a good Aussie spin to it. And it's also the location where I have my podcast and where Will, for his second iteration of the Epic Table podcast,

we'll come and hang out. I can't wait for that, by the way. That's going to be awesome. You made to cook it off and everything. Where can people find you, Dan? Mate, probably the best place is Instagram or website. So Instagram is just Dan underscore Churchill.

Or if you head to the website, it's Danchurchal.com. Terrific. Well, look, man, it's been a real pleasure spending time with you and I'm a big believer in you from a distance. I still can't wait to do the cooking together and learn a lot from you. And look, thanks again for coming on the podcast. Always, man. You got a lot of fans down here in New York City. You can say that much, but keep being epitone. We'll chat soon. Thank you to Dan for coming on the Whoop podcast. A reminder,

you can use the code Will Ahmed to get 15% off a Whoop membership. Check us out on social at whoop at will amid stay healthy folks stay in the green